Income Inequality

[SiriuslyLong]

The tax system does not exist for liberals to administer "social justice". It exists to collect revenue for government operations.

[Havakasha]

U.S. CEO Pay Jumps Minimum Of 27 Percent Last Year, Survey Finds

First Posted: 12/14/11 05:40 PM ET Updated: 12/14/11 07:35 PM

While the incomes of so many Americans remain the same size or get smaller, corporate chiefs can't say they're suffering in quite the same way.

American CEOs saw pay increases of between 27 and 40 percent last year, according to a GovernanceMetrics International survey cited by the Guardian. In addition, the median value of CEOs profits on stock options jumped to $1.3 million from $950,400 -- a 70 percent boost.

This, even after Congress passed financial reform regulations that included provisions aimed at making CEO pay more transparent by allowing shareholders to weigh in.

The survey's findings may resonate with Occupy movement activists, who have been railing against income inequality since the protests first started. Indeed, CEO pay by itself exceeded the amount that his or her corporation paid in income taxes in at least 25 cases last year. And in the year before America's highest-highest-paid corporate chief netted more than $145 million, U.S. median income fell to below $27,000, meaning half of all earners made less than that.

But John Hammergren, CEO of healthcare provider McKesson, isn't the only boss taking home the big bucks. JPMorgan Chase Chief Jamie Dimon got a $19 million raise in 2010 and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein netted an extra $3.6 million in bonuses last year.

The news is a good sign for people in the top one percent of earners, who saw their incomes drop by roughly a third in the official years of the recession, according to a recent report by The New York Times. Still, even after that fall, the net worth of one percenters remained 200 times higher than that of the median national income, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Some CEOs even got huge pay packages for not doing their jobs. Eugene Isenberg took home $100 million for dropping his title as CEO of Nabors Industries in October. While Dougless Foshee, the CEO of natural gas pipeline operator El Paso, became eligible for an exit package worth $95 million after the company was acquired by rival Kinder Morgan.

Still, some don't seem to mind the huge CEO paydays. The vast majority of corporate shareholders say that CEOs are being compensated correctly, according to an October study from research firm Equilar.

[SiriuslyLong]

Six Waltons Have More Wealth Than the Bottom 30 % of Americans

Different people will take this different ways, but Jeffrey Goldberg tells us that six members of the Walton family (the original owners of WalMart) have more wealth than the bottom 30 % of Americans. Here's where he says it:

In 2007, according to the labor economist Sylvia Allegretto, the six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans.

And given that he quotes us here at Forbes on the point, he's almost certainly right.

The question is, what are we to make of this point? I think we all know what Mr. Goldberg wants us to make of it, it's a telling indictment of American wealth inequality, the world's going to the dogs and something must be done about rising inequality.

The Waltons are now collectively worth about $93 billion, according to Forbes.

Well, yes, but. Total US household wealth is in the $50 trillion (yes, trillion) to $70 trillion range. The range is depending on whether you want to take before the housing crash or in the middle of it. So the statement is that these Waltons have, between the family, 0.13% of US wealth. Which, for the people who inherited the world's largest (well, certainly the country's) and most successful retailer doesn't sound like a particularly terrible concentration of wealth. It's certainly less than John D Rockefeller had all by his lonesome when he was in his pomp.

But I think it's possible that the comment is more revealing about Mr. Goldberg really, for as Felix Salmon points out, Mr. Goldberg himself has more wealth than the bottom 25% of Americans.

Hooooooolyyyyyy $hit - now that's RICH!: http://news.yahoo.com/six-waltons-mo...182819449.html

Occupy Walton's!!!!! Protest Walmart, Walgreens, Sams Club...... Boycott them.

[SiriuslyLong]

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income

By Hope Yen, Associated Press | AP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too 'rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

"The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years."

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are sparring over legislation that would renew a Social Security payroll tax cut, part of a year-end political showdown over economic priorities that could also trim unemployment benefits, freeze federal pay and reduce entitlement spending.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far, citing poor people who live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

"There's no doubt the recession has thrown a lot of people out of work and incomes have fallen," Rector said. "As we come out of recession, it will be important that these programs promote self-sufficiency rather than dependence and encourage people to look for work."

Mayors in 29 cities say more than 1 in 4 people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. Many middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold — roughly $45,000 for a family of four — because of pay cuts, a forced reduction of work hours or a spouse losing a job. Housing and child-care costs are consuming up to half of a family's income.

States in the South and West had the highest shares of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, which have scaled back or eliminated aid programs for the needy. By raw numbers, such families were most numerous in California and Texas, each with more than 1 million.

The struggling Americans include Zenobia Bechtol, 18, in Austin, Texas, who earns minimum wage as a part-time pizza delivery driver. Bechtol and her 7-month-old baby were recently evicted from their bedbug-infested apartment after her boyfriend, an electrician, lost his job in the sluggish economy.

After an 18-month job search, Bechtol's boyfriend now works as a waiter and the family of three is temporarily living with her mother.

"We're paying my mom $200 a month for rent, and after diapers and formula and gas for work, we barely have enough money to spend," said Bechtol, a high school graduate who wants to go to college. "If it weren't for food stamps and other government money for families who need help, we wouldn't have been able to survive."

About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.

The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs. Doing that helped push the number of people below 200 percent of the poverty level up from 104 million, or 1 in 3 Americans, that was officially reported in September.

This gets one to the Verizon ad on the right hand side: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/census...103940568.html

Has ANYONE told these people that there are good high paying jobs in North Dakota brought to us by the OIL and GAS Industry? No, Solyndra and Evergreen Solar are NOT HIRING.